


I, Mrs Darcy

by LinMeiWei



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: 1st person pov, Elizabeth's POV, F/M, No Angst, Romance, Sweet, scenes from an engagement, scenes from the early days of marriage, sequel scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-07 15:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19087840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinMeiWei/pseuds/LinMeiWei
Summary: After all the ups and downs of the main story, Elizabeth and Darcy are engaged and, at last, get married. Here Elizabeth experiences her first glows of happiness in love. There is no plot, I am literally just indulging in an opportunity to have Lizzy and Darcy flirt all the time. Scenes from their engagement and early days of marriage. Maybe someday these scenes will form the beginning of some greater story, but for now I hope you enjoy something a little sweet, and a little romantic.





	1. Chapter 1

I looked at Jane’s reflection in the mirror and, for a moment, could barely keep a straight face. Jane’s eyes met mine in the glass, a look of apprehension.

“What is it? Is it not right?”

My voice quivered, but I shook my head. “You are, as always, a vision. I was only imagining Mr Bingley’s reaction when he sees you. I think it is cruel for a man so young to die of apoplexy, do not you?”

Jane stared at me in horror, before understanding my meaning and colouring.

“Lizzy!” she said, chidingly. “You know this comes with a fichu!”

“Then I strongly recommend you wear it,” I said, picking the lace wrapper up from the chair and handing it to her. She tucked it around her neck and chest, and then stepped back to observe the effect.

“Come, stand beside me,” she said, reaching for my hand. “I think this will do, do not you?”

Next to her, I could not imagine anybody noticing me, but I thought we looked very fine and that the two weeks in London, during which Mamma had us visit near every shop in Town to assemble our trousseaux, had paid off.

“Mrs Bingley and Mrs Darcy,” Jane said ceremoniously, pressing my hand. She looked proud and happy at once, and it added a glowing quality to her ordinarily rather serene beauty. “It all happened so fast,” she sighed.

“Fast! I beg you, do not talk to me about fast! By the end, I was tempted to agree with Darcy that we ought to have taken to the border as soon as we were of one mind!”

Jane looked at me in shock. “He did not say so, did he?”

I laughed and shook my head. Darcy had, in fact, expressed some such sentiment once or twice, after having—with the patience of a saint—sat through an evening of my aunt Philips’s vulgarities or Sir William’s endless assurances that he would find us at St James’s. Darcy hadn’t been in earnest when he suggested we should run to Scotland, and neither was I now, although the wait had been torturous, especially since, for the past two weeks, while Jane could enjoy the attentions Bingley so liberally bestowed upon her, Darcy had been away in Pemberley, to prepare the house for all that was to come.

I missed his company. Two weeks is a long separation for lovers who had only recently admitted their feelings to one another. It was embarrassing to own that I thought of him nearly constantly. Love had the power of rendering its sufferers witless.

“Jane!” It was Kitty’s voice coming from the passage, along with her stomping feet. “Jane!”

“Here,” Jane said, stepping away from the mirror and opening the door. “What is it?”

Kitty looked in on us, smiling. “You both look very pretty,” she said, “but you might want to change, for-”

Mamma’s voice carried from the downstairs parlour, “Hill! Oh, Mary, write this down… something netted. Don’t frown so, you will have wrinkles before you are twenty. Where is Hill? Hill!”

Kitty dimpled. “She just saw Mr Bingley on his horse. He will be here soon.”

“Oh,” Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh dear, I have given him up today. We ought to change, Lizzy. Kitty, will you help?”

Kitty closed the door on Mamma’s cries, and helped us undo the buttons and the ribbons, and to find appropriate day dresses in which to greet my sister’s betrothed. Jane was all blushes when she made for the door, and Kitty and I had to stop her from tumbling down the stairs in her haste, for she had accidentally tucked her petticoat into her silk stocking.

When we came down, together, male voices could already be heard in the parlour. I was quite ready to wait my turn with Bingley, who was apt to see nobody but his bride as soon as she arrived, when my gaze was arrested by his companion. My heart gave a great leap. Mr Darcy! He had come early!

I beamed, and he smiled. I wanted to say something, but for the first time perhaps I felt a sting of shyness with him. It was, I told myself, due to our recent separation, and due to everybody being there and seeing us.

Jane enquired after Darcy’s journey, hoping it was a pleasant one. He thanked her and said he made good time.

“I daresay you did!” Bingley cried. “Though neither your horses nor your outriders will thank you for it. Whoever heard of a journey from Derbyshire taking but a night and a day! Madness! He must have been racing the mailcoach, upon my honour!”

Darcy looked as though he had hoped to have kept it a secret. I bit my lip to control my smile. Had all this haste been for me?

My mother began then to elaborate on the subject of how Mr Darcy, in all likelihood, could afford to change horses at the best inns, and had, to her mind, a hundred of them stored in every place in the country. It was a speech designed to give pleasure to no one but Papa, who came in just then and enjoyed the moment for all it was worth.

“How do you do, sir!” he said, first to Darcy then to Bingley. I was always anxious that he should like Darcy, but though he appreciated him well enough, he would not stoop to containing my mother’s wildest outbursts for him or anybody.

Mamma was already planning a great dinner, and as though convinced that this would impress Darcy, began to list, “The Gouldings will certainly be here, and you won’t want to miss them, I dare say, for he has been travelling very far and will have a great deal to say. And of course Sir William and Lady Lucas, and Mr and Miss Robinson, and Mrs Long… she will bring her nieces, plain girls but so friendly, one must pity them, I think, though it was never to be expected that they should do as well as my own daughters, for Jane, I always said, was fit for a duke!”

Jane’s face was entirely crimson, and I could find nowhere to look, but my father’s eyes were dancing with enjoyment behind his glasses.

“Look, Darcy,” Bingley said, stopping my mother from running on. “Is not it a fine autumn?”

“The finest,” Darcy earnestly replied, both of them making a great show of looking out of the window, which happened to present nothing more edifying than our courtyard of an autumn.

“It would be a shame to pass up on such a fine day, I think,” Bingley said laughingly.

“A great shame,” Darcy confirmed.

“I say,” Bingley exclaimed theatrically, “I have a great hankering just now to see that view again… the one Jane was so good as to show me the last time we went. In this light, I fancy, it will be quite a different experience!”

Darcy was convinced that the light must not be missed. I would have appreciated their methods more, had not my father been in a teasing mood.

“Now that you advertise it so much,” Papa said, “I might go myself! It _is_ a very good light, is not it, Kitty? Mary? What say you wrap up your mother, and help her up for some exercise?”

Luckily, Mamma, not detecting the jest, exclaimed that she had no desire to be tugged about by the wind or pelted with falling leaves, but encouraged Jane and me to go, to improve our complexions, and so the four of us alone were, at length, allowed to leave.

With what swiftness Jane and I rushed to tie our bonnets and fasten our cloaks, I cannot say, but we were glad to be marching out of the gates and up the path moments later, never mind the wind or the leaves.

It had become our custom on these walks (our only reprieve from the intrusion of family, friends and neighbours) for Jane and Bingley to lag behind and for Darcy and me to charge ahead. This gave us some privacy without being entirely improper, and so no sooner did we pass the courtyard gate, did we begin to drift away from one another in the accustomed way.

Soon, Darcy and I could talk without being overheard. My hand was in his arm, and he looked down at me from underneath the brim of his beaver with a smile, but our recent parting had done the mischief and I was- well, I was shy.

It was silly to be shy of him, of course, for we were to be wed in but two days, and after all that had occurred of good and evil in the course of our acquaintance, we knew one another better, perhaps, than many another pair destined for the altar. But as we walked I could think of nothing to say, and he, meanwhile, seemed content to say nothing. For a while, we walked in this way, the cold in the air caused our breaths to come in puffs of steam, the ground was hard and cold underneath our marching feet.

Then I remembered something I had resolved to discuss with him, and breaking the silence I said, “I have a favour to ask you.”

He looked down at me, surprised, his thoughts had been elsewhere. “Yes?”

“While you were away,” I began, weighing my words, “it occurred once or twice but… my neighbours, very eager to befriend Bingley, have been coaxing him to spend all his time with them. Sometimes, I am sorry to say, he would yield all too readily, and cause my sister concern. Especially, since he would then be late to attend her, or sometimes forget altogether.”

He listened with a slightly uncomprehending frown.

“I think Mr Bingley yields far too readily to the powers of persuasion,” I said, hinting. His frown cleared.

“You disapprove, do you?” he asked in an amused murmur.

“How can you be surprised?”

“You did appear vehemently supportive of the idea that one ought to readily yield to the demands of friends only a few months ago,” he reminded me.

“Oh, don’t repeat the nonsense I said then. I only said it to vex you,” I laughed.

“You hardly needed to open your lips to do that.”

We had reached the crest of the hill and turned off the main path to walk to the little viewing point at its edge. Here the trees shaded us from the path, and ahead stretched a view of gentle hills, a patchwork of fields strewn with farmers’ houses and barns, and lines of leaf-less trees.

I laughed, feeling my cheeks warm, “Indeed! Very pretty, I thank you. And so, you will marry me, I suppose, so I can vex you until the end of our days?”

He put his arm around my waist and pulled me to him in one smooth movement. “As your husband I can put your lips to much better use.”

He placed a kiss on my neck, and I pushed on his chest, at once amused and alarmed. After the talk Mamma had had with Jane and me two evenings before, in which “duty”, “obedience”, “suffer with patience” and “get with child as soon as ever you can” were the dominant themes, I could not but feel a little nervous even amidst the flutter of excitement his kisses always elicited.

“I wish to ask you something very delicate, and you will do nothing but put me to the blush,” I said.

His eyes met mine in fond amusement, and he loosened his hold of me. “Very well, tell me. How may I assist you?”

“I would like you to talk to Bingley.”

“On what subject?”

“His… his duties. Towards Jane. His strength of conviction. His ability, or rather lack thereof, to refuse to be coaxed into others’ bidding.”

For a moment, Darcy seemed to be struggling with keeping a straight face, his dark eyes laughing at me.

“What?” I asked.

“My love, do you expect me to persuade Bingley not to be so persuadable?”

I could not but laugh with him, but assured him, too, that “If there is one man who could do it, I am sure it is you.”

“What, bend the powers of logic?”

“I really do not understand your opposition. It is perfectly logical to yield one last time and then never more. Your future sister’s happiness is at stake.”

“Do not you think that this might be something the Bingleys ought to discuss between themselves?”

“But Jane will never say anything, she never complains!” I said. “But _you_ , as a man and one who already has so much influence over him… _You_ could explain to him how he must be more… steady to his course.”

When he did not respond, I added, “You owe it to Jane.”

He sighed, his gloved hand playing with the ribbon of my bonnet.

“You make the most extraordinary claims,” he said. “What exactly do I owe her?”

“Well, you separated her from Bingley and made her very unhappy. Now you can do something to make her happy. This must appeal to your sense of both logic and justice.”

“If we are to be logical, and also, may I add, consistent and true to reason and reality all at the same time,” he said, patiently, “I believe I was also responsible for encouraging Bingley to return to Netherfield. I think that evens our score.”

“It does no such thing! You merely righted a wrong.”

“Merely?”

“Yes, merely. It was the very least you could do.”

He raised his eyebrows at me, but I could tell he was not offended: for one, I learned recently that he was not as easily offended or as stuffy and hard as he had at first appeared, and for another he had that look about him of a man who is looking down at an adorable idiot. I had once told him that he looked at me that way, and he protested vehemently, but I knew it for what it was.

“May I remind you,” he said, “that your sister had a very pretty display of this particular flaw in Bingley’s character during their courtship? It is not as though she did not know that he yields too easily.”

“Yes, and she loves him nevertheless.”

He smiled and, putting a finger under my chin so that he might kiss me more easily, did so very lightly and then, equally lightly, taking advantage of the flutter of confusion this always caused in me, he murmured, “Has it ever occurred to you, my love, that perhaps it is not _his_ character that is at fault here?”

I, at first flustered by the kiss, could not immediately react, but when I did it was with my jaw dropping in shock.

“Jane?” I cried.

His eyes widened comically and, slightly imitating me, he said, “Jane!”

“Jane is not at fault! How can you say such a thing!”

He smiled patiently but said nothing, and so I, goaded, proceeded with a recital of all of Jane’s merits. I explained to him at length, as I had done many times, how Jane was the paragon of all possible virtues and that were I half as good as Jane I could die knowing I was very good indeed.

He did not seem moved by this. When I had done, he said, “Quite. But she does tend to accept other people’s missteps and misbehaviours without standing up for her own rights.”

“She can only see the best in people!”

“Just so. And it is very admirable.” This appeased some of my offended feelings. He continued, “But all that needs to happen in this current situation, is for her to tell Bingley that he has displeased her. He is violently in love with her. If he knew he had made her unhappy, he would be, I’m sure, mortified. And though I cannot claim to have even one day’s worth of experience more than he does in the field of matrimony, I believe it would be beneficial to both their and our future felicity if they learned to speak to one another of their needs without resorting to you applying to me to speak to either of them.”

I was reminded how it always was so difficult to reason with him. After all, what logical arguments could I summon to describe the look of loss on Jane’s face when Bingley did not show at the agreed time, for a late card party or an impromptu shooting had claimed his attention, exhausted him, delayed him?

So I did not use words, but instead looked up at Darcy, not pleadingly, but with feeling. He looked back at me, determined to resist me.

“It is for your sister’s own good,” he said.

I smiled. He cast his eyes to the heavens as though looking for forbearance and then shook his head. My smile widened. I could read capitulation in his features, and so astonished him by throwing my arms about his neck, whispering, “Thank you”.

His arms were around me still when we heard Bingley’s cheerful voice, and we fell apart and I righted my spencer, while Darcy pretended to study the vista.

On our walk back to Longbourn, Jane and Bingley walked close behind us, and Bingley regaled Darcy with the various wonderful ideas for entertainment he and his new friends in Hertfordshire had for him. Darcy, who was never exuberant, dampened Bingley’s spirits by telling him that his thoughts were elsewhere these days, and that he had far rather spend his evenings at Longbourn.

“Oh yes, quite!” Bingley laughed. “I can think of nothing better! We shall be most comfortable together in a smaller circle!”

I smiled up at Darcy and he, with an exasperated smile, murmured for my hearing alone, “Is this what marriage will be? You riding roughshod over me?”

“Oh of course,” I said. “You don’t know it yet, sir, but you are marrying the shrew of the family.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding.

The excitement and disorder of Longbourn on the day of my wedding passed me entirely by. My own nerves had calmed now to a sereneness to equal Jane’s. I did not think of my mother, though she had the whole house in an uproar from dawn. I did not think of my younger sisters, who quarrelled about the wreaths they wanted to wear on their heads for the occasion.

Instead, I thought of how a full year ago we were first assailed by the news of Netherfield being occupied at last. I thought of the Meryton ball, where we first met Mr Bingley and his handsome, rich friend whom everybody wanted to admire until he offended them all with his pride and arrogance. Darcy had offended me too, for I heard him declare me “tolerable” but not so tolerable as to tempt him to ask me to dance with him! I could look back at those days and shake my head at myself and at him, and smile at it all. Oh how we had made each other suffer!

As the time of our departure to church neared, I was impatient, my stomach was like a rush of butterflies, and I knew that the only person who understood my feelings was Jane, whose demeanour was very like mine.

Kitty and Mary looked very pretty, with flowers in their hair, as the two bridesmaids. And though Mamma had complained a fair amount about Lydia’s not attending the event, there was enough to do afterwards for her to forget that one disagreeable circumstance altogether.

And eventually I, too, quite forgot every other thing that troubled me. I forgot about Bingley and Jane, though they were there right alongside me; about leaving my home soon and forever; about the sadness I had felt at sight of my empty dresser, for everything had already been packed in boxes, bound and sent up to Pemberley in Mr Darcy’s carriage. I forgot about the evening before, sitting with Jane late into the evening, weaving plans for our children and children’s children; about how desperately sad I was at the distance that would now separate us.

I was insensible to the Bingleys in the pews quite as much as to Colonel Fitzwilliam and Georgiana, and to one or two of Mr Darcy’s cousins and friends whom I recognized but scarcely knew.

I stood at Darcy’s side, and let the vicar’s words wash over me. I remembered how I had longed for Darcy to speak, and feared that he would not, when he had returned Bingley to Jane that summer. And the evenings I spent balancing on my toes to take his letter from its hiding spot in the false wall of the dresser in the middle of the night, reading it again and again by the light of a single candle, searching out those words the betokened his affection for me. I remembered how recently I had been convinced I would never see him again, but for the christening of Jane and Bingley’s children, and how I regretted every mean word I had thrown at his head when I hadn’t known him better.

It was all over now. He was mine forever, and nothing would stand between us ever again.

Darcy picked the ring up from the open Bible at the parson’s instruction, and took hold of my hand. Everything came into sharp focus for a moment. The scent of rain and damp wood and of the parson’s powdered wig, the glow of the candles on the altar, and the sound of the wind howling outside. Darcy’s eyes on my hand, the ring poised around the tip of my fourth finger, his voice low and serious, he spoke.

“With this Ring I thee wed,” he said. His eyes rose to meet mine. “With my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

The ring felt exactly right on my finger, neither cool nor warm, and I looked at it reflect the light of the candles with a thudding heart. Somewhere near us, Bingley was using those same words to pledge himself to my sister, but it felt as though Darcy and I were entirely alone.

“Let us pray,” the vicar announced.

Darcy pressed my hand, and I looked up. He smiled proudly, and I sniffed. I smiled back through tears.

I never knew how unhappy I had been before, until that moment of perfect joy when I felt, at last, that I was where I was meant to be. Everything seemed to me bright and sparkling, though it was a dreary and grey autumnal day. I was charmed by everybody, could not stop laughing all day, and when it came time to bid my parents goodbye, and squeeze Kitty and then Mary, and whisper promises of frequent visits and even more frequent letters, I was still in the throes of exquisite happiness.

I was more perfectly in love than anybody had any right to be. How handsome Darcy looked in his dark blue coat of superfine, so exquisitely tailored, so becoming on his fine, tall figure. How well he spoke—there surely was no man more intelligent than he! I was quite as proud of him now, as he ever had been of himself.

Later, I accepted my husband’s assistance to climb into his carriage, and as we rolled away from the entrance of Longbourn, I waved to my friends and family with one hand. With the other I was still holding Darcy’s.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suitably low and conveniently still

I will never forget the moment I first realised that a marriage to Mr Darcy could be happy. I was visiting Pemberley with my aunt and uncle on one of those long, warm summer days that feel so peaceful, they fill one just as a good meal does.

We were glad for the shade of Pemberley’s large halls and for the coolness of its marble floors, and admired its stately, uncomplicated beauty, when we found our way, under the leadership of his housekeeper, to the gallery. Here hung the formidable creatures that made up the Darcy family tree, and Mrs Reynolds told us of the judges, the generals and admirals, the famous beauties they had married, who all looked down from the wall at us with hints of the same haughty arrogance that I knew from their descendant. Naturally, my eyes sought out the only person on that long wall I recognized, ready to see the puffed up pride and disdain in his features that I associated with him. When I found him, my astonishment at what I saw was great. It _was_ him—he looked the same but younger—yet it was as though I had seen a different man entirely. He was smiling down at me, and the warm, contented look on his face was one I had seen before only on those occasions when he used to watch me, in Hertfordshire and later in Kent.

I had previously been blind to it, convinced that the truth of him lay in those moments when he was at his worst: contemptuous, disdainful, proud, impatient, arrogant. It confused me to realise that I had had glimpses of another side of him from the very beginning.

Afterwards, his housekeeper showed us the famous library (famous to me, at least, from all Caroline Bingley’s praise), and while Mrs Reynolds spoke at length about the great efforts put in by the present master to expand these rooms and to use all these resources to help with the education of the boys in the town, as well as various other people who depended on his patronage as they trained for their professions, I saw a long comfortable sofa by the empty fireplace. I could have sat there, I thought, had I accepted him, and with the man from the portrait, the man who was to be credited with all this charity and all these good deeds, I could have been content.

I remembered all this now that I was in bed on our wedding night, waiting for him.

We spent this first night of our marriage at Netherfield, to depart for Pemberley the next morning. All of the guests who had stayed with Bingley until the wedding had already left for their respective destinations: the Bingleys and Hursts (save for Bingley and Jane) to Yorkshire; and Georgiana under the colonel’s protection even further north, to Northumberland, to stay with the earl and his family until Christmas, when we were to meet again.

So Jane and Bingley, Darcy and I were left to ourselves that evening. After a companionable dinner, and a convivial evening of music and games, Jane and I retired to our respective rooms, both flushed and giddy with all that had happened. We parted for the night as we used to do in Longbourn, embraced and assured each other that we had had a wonderful day. We didn’t speak of what was to happen next.

I washed, and brushed and plaited my hair, all as per Mamma’s instructions, and hid from the draughty doors and windows by slipping under the counterpane and pulling it up high over my chest. This was a different room from the one I had slept in with Jane, when Jane was so ill this time last year. It was larger and had a connecting door to another bedroom which, I had discovered when I looked in out of curiosity, belonged to Darcy. His valet had been polishing Darcy’s boots, and regarded my intrusion with an air of absolute astonishment.

I was conscious of nerves as I sat in my bed. When a knock came on my door, I started and trembled. But it was the maid, coming to see the fire and enquire after my comfort. Embarrassed, I lit a candle and pretended to read. The conscious smile on her face did nothing to calm my nerves and, frankly, I resented it. Then she finished her preparations for the night and left for good and I resented that too, for it became very quiet and the reality of the upcoming night grew like a monster before my eyes.

_Courage._

I loved him. Throughout our engagement—from the way he held my hand or put his arm about me, to the way he kissed me—he had been as kind and warm and gentlemanly as I had once thought him villainous, contemptible and cold. When I had accepted him, I knew him to be good and worthy, intelligent and honourable. But soon afterwards I learned that he could be (when his patience wasn’t strained by my mother) charming, witty and sociable. The moments when we were alone and he was lover-like were always too short, and I never parted from him after a walk or a turn about the garden without a pang of regret.

So now that we would no longer be parted, I knew there was nothing to fear from him.

I leaned back in my pillow, closed my eyes and comforted myself with memories of him from these past few weeks. We had been granted but few moments of true privacy, so each was vivid in my memory, and made me long for him to come at last. I had so much to say to him, so much to share of the wedding and all my hopes and dreams.

I thus comforted myself perhaps a little too well, for the next thing I knew the candle guttered in its holder, the soft autumnal sun peeped through the gap in the curtains of the bed, and Darcy lay next to me, on top of the cover, in his shirtsleeves and breeches, with his hands behind his head and his long legs stretched out and crossed at his ankles. It was the morning and I had slept through my wedding night.

Oh dear, I thought, amused and, truthfully, a little ashamed of myself. It was not my way to quit the field without a battle, and I truly meant to do all that Mamma had told me I must, and to be brave and to become his wife fully, last night.

I raised myself up onto my arms and looked down at him. His eyes were closed, his face as still and noble as that of a statue. His breath came softly. I lay my hand cautiously on his stomach; it did not wake him. Placing my hand on his rough cheek—it was covered in a thin layer of dark stubble, a state of dishevelment I had not had the privilege to see him in before—I said, near a whisper, “Husband?”

He slept soundly. Amused, I wondered whether I ought to call in a servant to inform them that our departure would be delayed. But when I moved the bed curtains a gust of cold air invaded from the rest of the room and I withdrew back into the warmth of the bed at once.

Then a thought came to me. Over the course of our engagement he had kissed me a dozen times—indeed whenever the opportunity offered he was quick to take it—and though I was happy to receive them, I had never yet dared to kiss him myself. There was some difficulty in doing so, for he was considerably taller than me, and so I was never sure how this was to be accomplished without a great deal of climbing and accompanying awkwardness. Now, however, he was suitably low and conveniently still. It could be done.

Stealing up to face him, I cleared a dark lock of hair from his brow and tilted my head to appropriately angle it. I lowered my face very slowly, carefully, so as to not wake him. My heart hammered in my chest. His breath came with the soft regularity of sleep. His lips were closed. Suddenly a crash of porcelain and metal outside our room resounded, and his eyes flew open. Outside, one maid chided another over a dropped tray. His dark eyes met mine in bleary confusion.

“What are you doing?” he murmured.

I realised now that my face was hovering over his, and my hands were holding his head by his chin and his forehead. My cheeks heating, I said, “I was about to kiss you. You must be quiet and keep still.”

He stifled a laugh by pressing his lips together and then raised his eyebrows expectantly. How was I to do it if he looked at me in that way? It was impossible and so I told him.

“Perhaps if you had me in a more romantic position,” he suggested. “A dentist’s chair comes to mind.”

I laughed. “You are abominable. It will serve you right if I never kiss you!”

He smiled and took my hands into his, moving them so that they were on either side of his face. Outside of our room, the clatter of dishes had ceased and the stampede of servants had dissolved into morning silence once more.

Taking a deep breath, I was about to do it, when I was distracted by the shaking of his shoulders and I frowned and said, “You are laughing at me!”

He stopped me from moving away by holding my arms, and apologised. “Come,” he said, “if we work together, and focus very hard, we will overcome this tragic difficulty.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I would have succeeded well enough had not you woken up. Close your eyes, sir.”

He sighed and did as I bade him. Then, just as I was about to lower my face to kiss him, he opened one eye and so, vexed, I put my hand over it and, before he could say anything else and spoil all my good resolve, I kissed him. He wasn’t laughing anymore.

I kissed him as I had wanted to kiss him from the beginning, and sighed with pleasure when he deepened it, so that I could sink down into his arms.

There was no more wavering now.

I was surprised how lovely it was to fall on my back and feel his lips on my skin. Even the act of undressing before him—an act I previously thought of only with the deepest embarrassment—seemed like nothing, natural and necessary. It embarrassed me no more than the urgency with which I drew his shirt off over his head. How could I have known, from all that had been told me, that one could feel anticipation, impatience even, at the thrill of another’s touch? The burst of pain I had been told to expect was brief and unremarkable. He paused at my gasp, and kissed and held me, and sighed my name and many words of affectionate, warm encouragement. I pulled him to me and his eyes rolled up in his head. I reached for him, pulling his face to mine, demanding he kissed me.

His lips were teasing me now, the sensation of warmth, of intense closeness, which made me feel breathlessly full. It was like all those times in the past when he had held and kissed me, only brought to its conclusion, that excited feeling deep in my stomach finally exploding in a heat of sensation.

I was his and he was mine. There was no time for rational thought, everything was feeling, everything was heat and inexpressible sweetness. There was no time to even consider the immodesty of clinging to him as if for dear life, for he held me just as closely to himself, and afterwards he held me still, and stroked my hair, and looked at me so tenderly, there was no need for words. All could be accomplished with kisses.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks into life in Pemberley.

The soft patter of paws over the carpet and the panting of dogs preceded my husband’s appearance in the door. He came in, flanked by the hounds on each side, holding his gloves in one hand.

I had taken up a desk in the library, looking out over the bowling green, now covered entirely with as yet undisturbed snow. Darcy, when he saw what I was doing, smiled and said, “You know you needn’t trouble yourself with these matters now. Nobody will resent you for familiarising yourself with your new home first.”

“But that is just what I am doing,” I said, putting my pen down. It needed mending. In front of me were copious, rather ink-stained notes and, between them, a map of Pemberley and its environs. I had found it rolled up between stacks of large atlases.

“Well,” he said, “I didn’t mean you must study it in such great detail. What is all this for?”

He tilted his head to look at the papers spread before me.

“I wanted to understand how far Mrs Pearce’s charitable work goes, and to see how perhaps we can coordinate our efforts with the other great houses, and parishes, to be more efficient and, perhaps, effective. It helps to see it laid out neatly on a map, though I suppose this one is not very accurate.”

He looked surprised and studied the map for a moment.

“It is accurate enough. That is Willowdale,” here he pointed at the house that lay immediately north of Pemberley. It was a large, heavy, Jacobean structure, where the Tupper-Jones’s lived. “You have visited it, so you can vouch for the map’s veracity there.”

I smiled. “Indeed.”

“And you have Salis House here,” he continued, pointing to the other side of Kympton, where the great estate stood. “You will have occasion to verify it in greater detail soon, since we are to join their shooting party.”

I sighed. The dowager Lady Salis organised these parties every year, and I supposed that it behoved me to go and to learn how such things were conducted, before we started organising them here at Pemberley.

“This is Shipperton,” he said, pointing to a smaller manor in the middle of what the map called ‘Dere Park’. “You met Mrs Ross, didn’t you? She lives there, and her nephew, who will inherit, is at sea.”

I nodded. “Mrs Pearce and I want to solicit her help with an orphanage that lies nearby.”

“And this is Thorneycroft Lodge,” he pointed again. “Three daughters, one foolish son, presently at Harrow, but the Squire is not half witless.”

I looked up at him, amused. “High compliment indeed!” Then, turning to the map again, I pointed at a drawing of a rather modern looking house, under which the name ‘Evenrose’ stood. “This cannot be accurate, can it? I had no visit from anybody there.”

Darcy frowned. “I should think not.”

“Why?” I said, my curiosity roused. “Does nobody live there?”

He wavered and then, reluctantly, said, “Well, it is not uninhabited, but for you it might as well be.”

My eyes widened in surprise, and he explained, “The woman who lives there, does so under the patronage of a married man.”

“Ah,” I said, feeling, at once, extinguished. Mamma had explained to me and Jane, before the wedding, that it was customary for wealthy men to have these establishments, and that neither Jane nor I were to know anything of it, and even if we did, we were to pretend and never say a word about it to anyone, and indeed be grateful for it. It was a lowering thought.

“You must know that not all marriages are founded on love,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Not all are as fortunate as you and I.”

I smiled at this acknowledgement of ours being a different marriage from those fashionable ones wealthy people entered into, which then somehow necessitated places like Evenrose.

“I would rather not marry at all than marry someone I cannot love and respect and then do as abominable a thing as break my vows,” I confessed.

“I know,” he said looking down at me with an amused smile. “I know that even if the richest, most eligible bachelor you know proposed to you, you would not accept unless he has shown himself worthy.”

“You assume you were the most eligible bachelor I knew,” I said, primly.

“Was not I? Forgive me. So you have had many offers from men such as me?”

“No,” I said, “not from men such as you.”

His eyebrows rose.

“From other men then?”

I repressed a laugh and looked up at him entirely innocently.

“You _have_ had other offers!” he said, narrowing his eyes at me. “Wretch! Who was it?”

“I cannot tell you, sir, it would be unpardonable of me to reveal such things.”

“Wickham!”

“No, Mr Wickham never proposed to me,” I said. “And if he had he would have been refused.”

“Good,” Darcy grumbled.

“But it was someone you know.”

“Fitzwilliam! I knew it!” His fists clenched, and I had to laugh.

“Very well, I shall tell you before you duel every man who has the remotest mutual acquaintance with us. It was Mr Collins.”

Darcy frowned. “Do not tease me about such matters. Who was it?”

“Indeed, I am perfectly serious! It was Mr Collins.”

For a moment he stared at me as though the horror of the situation were playing right before his eyes. Then he shuddered.

“What happened?” he asked as though enquiring about the progress of a particularly disgusting disease.

“This I truly mustn’t say,” I said. “It is enough for you to know that there was never an engagement between us.”

“I should think not. There would have been a revolution if you tried to marry him. I should have led it!”

I laughed. “I should dearly liked to have seen it!”

We were interrupted, at that moment, by a maid.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” the young girl curtsied. “A Miss Fisher arrived to see you, ma’am.”

I frowned trying to recall who that might be and remembered now that when I mentioned to Mrs Tupper-Jones, at a recent visit, that I still had not employed a lady’s maid, she assured me that she knew just whom I should meet. Miss Fisher, then, must be the lady who could help me procure an appropriate abigail.

I rose and instructed the maid to bring Miss Fisher up to my personal parlour in a few minutes.

“Let her wait in one of the rooms with a fire,” I said. Then, when she left, I turned to Darcy and informed him that soon I shall have an abigail.

“She will please you, too,” I said, “for you won’t have to struggle with my buttons and my ribbons each evening.”

This amused him. “Woe is me,” he said, bending down to kiss me. And between kisses, “how I hate unbuttoning… and unlacing… and unwrapping you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A strong-willed man

It was a bright early December day, and though the frost had crystallised the dew on the green and crunched underfoot as we walked through the garden, it was beautiful. Everything seemed beautiful to me in those early days, for Pemberley had yet that glow of newfound fairyland to me.

“I want to go there,” I said, pointing into the distance, onto a hill. On it stood a lone chapel, and as I had seen it before on our walks, I had grown increasingly curious about it. I knew it did not belong to Pemberley, for I had been to the Pemberley chapel before.

“It is a little far just now,” Darcy said, looking out into the distance. “They will call us in for breakfast soon.”

I laughed, for he was the last person to care about such trifles as food. Whenever he wanted to do something—mostly delay me in bed—he would say, “breakfast be hanged,” without any compunction at all.

“What?” he said, at the laughing look I threw him.

“I daresay I could make you come with me. Not by coaxing, for you are a very strong-willed man…”

He raised his eyebrows.

“But,” I said, walking away from him down the gravel path, “if I were to simply go, I daresay you would follow.”

“You would not know the way,” he said. “I could inform a footman to give you directions, and those directions would simply lead you back to me.”

“Ah, you want to be clever about it. I see. Well, then perhaps I must be underhanded too.”

I slowly drew off a glove from my hand, finger by finger, and placed it neatly on a hedge.

“What are you doing?” He sounded at once amused and exasperated.

“I am ever so cold,” I said, pretending greater frailty than had ever been in my nature.

“Then don’t take your clothes off,” he suggested.

I began to work on my second glove. Darcy took a step towards me, so I took a swift step back. He narrowed his eyes.

“Elizabeth…”

I placed my second glove on another hedge.

“Well, sir?” I said, blinking innocently at him. “Won’t you come with me now? I am liable to freeze to death otherwise.”

He took another step towards me, and I took another back, away from him.

“And what do you mean to accomplish by all this, may I ask?” he said.

“Nothing at all,” I said, undoing the knot that held together my velvet cloak trimmed with swansdown.

“You need not concern yourself with it,” I suggested, and let the cloak fall to my feet. His eyes darkened, and I felt a quiver in my stomach, of amusement, perhaps, or something else.

“Am I vexing you dreadfully?” I asked, laughter bubbling up in me.

He took another step and I slipped behind the rosebush, now a ball of thorny branches. It was a wrong move, for now he had me cornered.

He smiled. “Where now, pretty one?”

I laughed. “You are dreadful,” I said. “I do not know this garden as well as you do. It isn’t fair!”

“I am not the one who invited you to play in it,” he said. “So it is entirely fair.”

“Will you let me out?”

“But how am I preventing you?” he said in mock innocence.

I had no other choice. I made a rush for the walled garden, but he was quicker and though I laughed and shrieked in protest, he lifted me up into his arms, kissed me and then, to crown this outrage, lifted me up over his shoulder.

Only then did we both notice the footman standing by, waiting to be seen. Darcy put me to my feet, and I, though still amused, tried to straighten my dress.

“Breakfast is ready, sir,” the footman said, his gaze fixed to the ground. Then he bowed and walked away.

I wondered, a little belatedly perhaps, if this was not perhaps a disagreeable way for Darcy to be seen in front of his servants. I glanced up at him, hoping he was not offended. He looked down at me.

“I will count to five,” he said.

I bit my lip. “I am quick, I warn you.”

“One.”

“It is unseemly.”

“Two.”

I threw him one challenging look, and then set off, in a run, towards the house. I did not hear him run behind me, so when he came up, I cried out in surprise. He swept me up into his arms and twirled me around, and I laughed and hid my face in his shoulder.

Each day, breakfast marked the definite end of our privacy. Letters stood in neat piles by the side of our plates, along with cards and notes; footmen came in and exited all the time, bringing coffee and warm muffins; and here we had to cease being lovers and had to become master and mistress of Pemberley.

The first letter that came to my attention, with a jump in my chest, was the one from Jane. But it contained nothing more exciting than an account of the cold that swept through the Netherfield domestics, her ongoing efforts to befriend Miss Bingley (“ _she is being very patient with me, and I am sure it must be a great imposition on her to open her heart to a friendship she perhaps does not desire as much as we all wish she did_ ” Jane wrote—I restrained myself from groaning), and her hosting of her first dinner at Netherfield (“ _I never knew how much one frets before the event! When we were helping Mamma in these cases, it was always such a light-hearted endeavour, but now that I was to host myself, I could not stop fussing about the flowers and how they were arranged, and over the bill of fare, and contemplating the table in my dreams and how I ought to display the china,_ ” she wrote). Of Bingley she wrote little and nothing detrimental. He was the kindest, gentlest, handsomest etc. etc. I glanced up from my letter at Darcy, who was leaning back in his chair, having forgotten his breakfast entirely and instead frowning over something in the newspaper.

I watched his dear face and owned to a tinge of pride. In truth, in my present state I was sincerely doubtful that it was even possible for any woman to be happy with a husband who was not Mr Darcy.

He looked up, surprised to find himself gazed at, and smiled.

“Jane and Mr Bingley send their regards,” I said, looking back down at my letter, to hide my embarrassment. This would never do. If I continued to go about moon-eyed over him, he would grow too conceited by half.

“Yes,” he drawled. “I had a note from Bingley. It finishes mid-sentence and then resumes with another thought altogether, and as the whole thing is covered in crumbs, I can only conclude that he is living a contented life filled with deserts.”

I laughed. “Never say a Bennet girl cannot take care of her husband.”

“Indeed,” he said, his eyes laughing at me across the table. “Do you think that is her purpose? To make him docile by copious amounts of cake and pie? If so, she is a craftier minx than I ever suspected. My respect for her is rising.”

I shook my head at him, amused. “You abuse your friend abominably. A husband ought to be made comfortable.”

“So he ought.”

There was a speaking look in his eyes—it made me blush.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's three years later. Darcy and Elizabeth are going to a ball.

3 years later

May 1816

Berkley Square, London

 

“Well, apparently it went off without a hitch,” said the viscount with a bored drawl. He, his brother the colonel and Darcy were discussing the recent royal wedding just as I entered the drawing room at Darcy House.

“It was to be expected,” said Darcy, drawing his watch from his pocket and glancing at it.

“Ah, you mean the wedding?” I said to Colonel Fitzwillliam. “What did your father think, sir?”

“Oh, he can think of nothing better!” He took up centre stage in our drawing room, puffing his chest in imitation of the earl’s bulk, which he could not quite reach without effort, and, imitating his voice, said, “The sooner they wed the better! And then she ought to lie in childbed until she has secured the succession. All right and propah!”

“His delicacy on such subjects is, er, disconcerting,” said Darcy, with a faint smile.

The viscount, who was sitting by the window, examining his fingernails with studied boredom, said, “If you like it, you ought to be more interested in what he said about you! Hang this royal wedding, he had a whole soliloquy on the subject of your, ah, energy.” He looked up with a speaking smile.

The product of said energy, our son, Freddie, had just let out a loud shriek and came charging, like a wild bullet, into the room, his short legs making his run a haphazard sort of affair.

Behind our firstborn came a blushing Georgiana, half her hair still in rolling papers.

“Oh dear, I am sorry,” she said, with an embarrassed laugh. “Come here, little one.” She did not manage to get to the boy, for it was Darcy who caught him, picked him up, and held him in his arms.

He looked his son in the eye and said, “Are you trying to summon all the armies of the Mongols with these wild cries, youngling?”

Freddie, flushed, his eyes enormous, dark orbs, his hair curling dark around his face, grinned.

“Hide from Weed,” he told his father confidingly. “Then you don’t go!”

“He is turning disconcertingly clever, that child,” said the viscount with a smile at me.

The colonel laughed, “He’s as domestic as his pater!”

“He has seen you kissing Anne goodbye,” Georgiana said to me. “And he worked out that this meant we were leaving. And so he decided to hide, didn’t you, you little monster? I will take him back to the nursery. Miss Reed is singing baby to sleep. You are the naughtiest boy in the world!” she fondly kissed the boy’s cheeks.

But Darcy would not be parted from his son. He was alarmingly unfashionable in this regard, for unlike most fathers of his rank and station he showed undue interest in all his children, was fascinated to observe them as they developed tastes, opinions and abilities, and never bored of hearing me talk of them.

“I will carry him back,” he said. “Where is Mary? She should look at your hair.”

Georgiana put her hand self-consciously to her head.

“Oh dear!” She blushed and then laughed. “Yes, I ought to go.”

She flitted out of the room.

“My dear,” I said, “If you do not return him to Miss Reed we won’t be able to go out.”

Darcy smiled. “Don’t tempt me. You know what I think of balls.”

“Tell mamma don’t go,” Freddie said, putting his little hand to his father’s cheek.

“If I could tell her what to do, my boy, I should never see another ball again,” Darcy said. “Come, it is time for Miss Reed to take charge of you.”

Miss Reed looked shyly in, and I took Freddie into my arms and with Darcy we walked out together to help him get back to the nursery. At the foot of the stairs, where Reed took the boy away, Darcy said, “I had better tell Ayres to walk the horses. Georgiana won’t be ready for another half hour.”

“Perhaps I should go up and change as well,” I said, looking down at myself. With all our engagements during the Season I had scarcely the time to use all the wardrobe I prepared for the occasion and it made me feel wasteful. With half an hour left I might very well try to appear to advantage.

“I meant to wear the white crape over satin I had made last week,” I said.

“I shall come and see it,” Darcy said, brushing a ringlet from my cheek.

I laughed, “There is no time.”

“To hell with time.”

 Just then one of the footmen appeared from around the corner and I told Darcy to go and see about the horses. Remembering a broach I left on the arm of the sofa in the drawing room I went to the door, and then I stopped, for I overheard the colonel and the viscount speak.

“Good God, there will be a fourth brat by the time they emerge!” laughed the colonel.

“Indeed,” said the viscount. “If I were Mrs Darcy I would keep a spring gun in my bedroom.”

I bit my lip, remaining hidden by the door.

“All the same,” the colonel said more soberly, “have you noticed the change in Darcy?”

“Change? Not really. Have you?”

“There is something,” said the colonel. “Mother noticed it recently, and once she pointed it out to me, upon my word, I don’t know how I missed it.”

“Well? What is it?”

“He is content.”

“Well, of course he is content,” said the viscount. “He is happily married, at last, and will never have to stand up with a stranger at a ball again!”

“Is that all?”

There was something wistful in his voice, and it tugged at my heart.

“It is time you thought of taking yourself down the aisle too, John. There’s no Boney to keep you occupied anymore, and I have a tidy little property that needs a tenant.”

The colonel laughed, “Then find him! I am quite happy as I am, I thank you.” Then, he added, “Do you think we will have to wait much longer? The ball started an hour ago.”

“Impatient to see anyone?” drawled the viscount.

“No.”  

“Well, I daresay Georgiana will hurry them along. She has probably promised every set already, and must not offend her scores of suitors.”

There was another prospect, I thought. Recently Darcy and I had our hands full, having to stand guard against every nincompoop and coxcomb who wanted to make up to Georgiana. While I did not think much was the matter with most of these boys, neither Darcy nor the colonel could countenance any of them as serious contenders for the girl’s hand.

Thoughtful, I turned away from the door and went up the stairs.

 

*

 

Since our wedding, we have attended a score of balls, routs and dinners. Darcy had not grown fonder of them—indeed ever since we have expanded our family he has become much more inclined to remain at home—but he was more comfortable at them now. Nobody could thrust him into the company of a maiden ready to be married anymore, and that eased much of his usual stiffness and hauteur.

I still liked to dance, and he stood up with me as often as I wished, but as a married woman one found a great many other things to do at balls. This one—a coming out ball organised on behalf of one of Georgiana’s friends—was a stuffy affair held in a large manor house in Richmond. I had not my usual distractions, for Jane was heavy with child at last (previous attempts yielded sad results, alas, but this time there could be no doubt of the outcome), and she and Bingley were taking every care around her. But after circulating the room and recognizing all the familiar faces of society, I found my way back to Darcy.

He was standing by the pillar at the side of the ballroom, watching the dancers. His eyes swept the elegant crowd with no great interest, until they were arrested by me. Then his face warmed with a smile.

“I am on a mission,” I said to him.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “I can see the mischief in your eyes. Let me guess, you have determined to find a bride for my cousin.”

I turned my astonished eyes to him.

“Why, how could you- how could you have known?”

His smile broadened, “You take me for an idiot, my dear, admit it.”

“I do not!” I laughed. “But how could you have known?”

“Well, you were staring fixedly at him throughout the ride here, and have since spoken to every mother of an eligible young woman, examining the girls with unwonted concentration. You even listened to Lady Asherton for five minutes without trying to extricate yourself from that bore. What else was I to think?”

I was, I could see now, as subtle as my mother used to be.

“Oh but I do wish I could find him someone,” I said. “Someone kind and warm, someone to come home to and share his worries with. Is not that something?”

“It is,” said he. “But I fear you won’t have an easy task here. He has a discerning eye and won’t lose his head so easily. She must have money above all else, and beauty and wit… and then you must convince such a woman that she should lower her sights to him.”

“Oh, how can you speak so?” I said. “I was thinking of Rebecca Jowett. She is considered a wit, and her portion is nothing to laugh at. I have just seen her talking to him, and he seemed engaged by her. Did you observe it? Did not he seem intrigued by her?”

“Oh yes,” Darcy said, in his dry voice. “I was watching him very particularly, and noted the particular angle of his brow and the stance of his legs in relation to the lady, to determine the exact degree of liking that was developing with each word they uttered to one another. Do be serious. She would never do.”

“Why not!”

“She rides fifteen stone, has already set herself up in an independent household, is widely considered a quiz—a harmless quiz, I grant you, but a quiz nonetheless—and has never shown any inclination to marry anybody.”

This was disappointing. I turned my gaze to the ballroom again.

“There is Amelia Molesworth,” I said. “I own she is no beauty, and I suppose she does have a rather, well, dominating nose and what your cousin deems to call a- a _masculine_ air, but she is very kind and motherly, besides being able to embroider like no other and- now, what have I said to make you go into the whoops? Oh what a wretch you are! I daresay you wish him never to marry!”

“On the contrary,” he said. “The more you tell me of your schemes the more I want to see them come to fruition.”

The reel ended and a spindly-legged youth walked Georgiana away from the lines of dancers. She came towards us, flushed and bright eyed, looking remarkably pretty. The youth bowed to Darcy, wavered for he did not want to relinquish the girl, but then squirmed away from Darcy’s steely gaze and quickly bowed and made away.

“Oh dear,” Georgiana fanned herself vigorously. “If they light any more candles, I shall faint.”

“I saw an open balcony in the parlour behind the card room,” I said. “Come, let me take you there.”

I gave her my arm and we walked away towards the large doors, behind which the doors to the terrace that led out onto a Chinese garden stood open.

“Who was that odious boy that jumped around you like a monkey just now?” I asked.

Georgiana laughed. “He was dancing!”

“No he wasn’t! Was he? Good Lord, no, truly, Georgie, was that dancing? No, no, you are jesting me…”

Georgiana giggled and I looked over my shoulder at Darcy. He was watching us go with a fond smile. Perhaps Darcy was right and such happiness as ours was not to be achieved through the meddling of others. Georgiana, the colonel, my sisters, they would all have to find their own paths to contentment. They would have to wade through the uncouth young, the wretchedly mercenary, the uninterested and the unresponsive, just as we all had to, before they found what I have found.

Or perhaps, I thought as I looked around me, perhaps I had extraordinary, unrepeatable luck. For this was not my world. I was a usurper, who stole one of the most eligible prizes of the marriage mart out of the blue.

“What is it?” Georgiana asked as we passed out into the terrace. She observed my pensive face, and so I smiled and took my shawl off my shoulders and placed it around hers.

“I was just thinking about you and what the future holds for you,” I said. “I do hope you shall be as fortunate as I was.”

Georgiana coloured and said, embarrassed. “Oh I should not dream of it! I mean never to marry, you know.”

I smiled, remembering how often I had thought so myself.

“Indeed,” I said.

“Men are all odious,” she continued. Darcy said I had influenced a great change in Georgiana, and I observed it now too, for she spoke much in the tones I often did. “Either they are stupid or horrid. One cannot marry either kind.”

I said nothing to contradict her, but delicately asked, “Horrid, my dear?”

“Oh yes,” Georgiana said. “Did you see Sir Anthony? I swear, half the room nearly fainted when he came in. And he behaves as though all this awe and attention is owed to him, just because he happens to be handsome and knows where to get a good coat. I find him extremely odious.”

I smiled. “Oh?”

I had noticed that he did not ask Georgiana to dance, even though she was certainly the most sought after hand that evening.

“He is a prig and deserves a set down. I do hope my brother gives him one.”

Perhaps, after all, history will repeat itself, in its own way. I patted her hand consolingly and said, “You know your brother. If he can give a prig a set down, eventually he will.”

We went down into the garden, arm in arm, and talked of other things. Of Pemberley and of my children, of shops and dresses and hairdressers, of her friends and her music sheets. Of everything and of nothing. The sun was going down over the distant horizon, the music faded behind us. We passed courting couples as they walked between the shrubs and the rose bushes. It was the way of the world, I thought to myself. 

*

"My love?"

Darcy was half asleep, but stirred and pulled me closer to him in a move which was now instinctive and natural as it was once exciting and new.

"Hm?"

"I think I would make a wretched Matchmaking Mamma, after all. It requires a seriousness of purpose I cannot muster."

He rubbed my shoulder consolingly. 

"Our children will have to fend for themselves," I said.

He opened his eyes slightly and looked down at me. 

"Why do you smile?" I said. "I am entirely in earnest."

"Good," he murmured. "If they grow up to be anything like either you or I, any eligible you thrust into their path will be rendered odious by that very act, and any person you dislike will become a firm favourite. You had better not do anything at all."

I was outraged at this assessment of our characters. I was not a contrarian for the sake of being contrary. How could he suggest I was?

"Freddie would never go against my wishes! He is the dearest, sweetest boy that ever lived and-"

I could see I was amusing him greatly.

"What?" I demanded.

"I was wrong after all," he said. "There will be no eligible girls for Freddie. None of them will be good enough in your eyes."

"Well of all the-" but he pulled me to him then and kissed me firmly and I could say nothing more. 

"Haven't you discovered it yet, my dear?" he said, his face close to mine. "You can meddle and prod and suggest as much as you wish, but eventually we all find our path, long and winding though it might be, to where our heart is content. Nobody else's opinion will matter, and anything anybody else does is interference in the work of fate."

"Do you truly believe that?"

"I have found it to be true," he said. He kissed me again.

"Are you trying to make me be silent because you want to sleep?" I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

"Not at all," he said. "Let us discuss it at length. I suggest we start with the first philosophers on love. Let us begin directly with Plato and-"

I yawned. "It has been a long night."

He smiled, kissed my forehead and pulled me closer to him, so I could rest my head on his chest. Only as I was drifting to sleep did I realise that he had used my contrariness against me. The devil! I would certainly tell him what I thought of that. But in the morning, for I was warm and comfortable now, and my mind was drifting...


End file.
